


Chocolatey Chocolate Chip Frappes

by MerMagicAnaLily, RoseFrog



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: College AU, Fluff, Implied ambi, M/M, These gay idiots need help, Tyrus - Freeform, coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-20 23:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20683928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerMagicAnaLily/pseuds/MerMagicAnaLily, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseFrog/pseuds/RoseFrog
Summary: Cyrus walks into The Spoon and instantly feels more at peace. The aroma of coffee and soothing atmosphere tend to do that to a stressed college student.There are two baristas working behind the counter. The first one Cyrus notices is a pretty blonde girl with a nose ring. The other barista... Oh. Cyrus stops in his tracks. He’s gorgeous. His eyes are bright green, and they seem to sparkle. He’s also wearing a rainbow flag pin on his apron.





	Chocolatey Chocolate Chip Frappes

**Author's Note:**

> From RoseFrog: I've been working on this idea for.... entirely too long, but luckily I found a wonderful co-author to make my dreams a reality aksehfvawklr
> 
> From MerMagicAnaLily: Hey Guys, so this is my first collab! I’m super grateful to the amazingly talented RoseFrog for taking me in and letting me add a little magic to her amazingly beautiful story! Please comment and tell me what you think!

Cyrus is pretty sure he’s going to die. He’s had two midterms and written three papers this week. But now it’s Saturday and he wants to take a nap. Preferably a week long nap. Unfortunately, that isn’t exactly compatible with his class schedule. Maybe double majoring in political science and communications hadn’t been the brightest idea.

Cyrus sighs and rubs his eyes. He’s sitting in the library staring at a wall, trying to hang on to his last two brain cells. Maybe he  _ could  _ go back to his dorm to take a nap, if he really felt like messing up his circadian rhythm for the rest of the quarter. Andi mentioned a new cafe, The Spoon, that opened downtown recently. She’s the hip friend, always knowing what’s up. Maybe caffeine will help lift Cyrus’s spirits.

Shadyside isn’t exactly the most “happening” town. It’s mostly made up of middle class nuclear families who go to cute parks and quaint diners, despite it technically being a college town.

Leaving campus and walking downtown, Cyrus passes a consignment shop that sells ripped jeans for $80, a vegan bakery, and a store that literally only sells pickles. The best thing about Shadyside is that it’s a lot more accepting that Cyrus’s hometown. High school had been difficult being in the closet. But college is supposed to be when you’re able to be the real you, right?

And here it is. Cyrus walks into The Spoon and instantly feels more at peace. The aroma of coffee and soothing atmosphere tend to do that to a stressed college student. He looks around, appreciating the atmosphere. The cafe has that sort of hipster vibes, with those horrible metal chairs and exposed brick walls. Cyrus sighs. It’s perfect.

There are two baristas working behind the counter. The first one Cyrus notices is a pretty blonde girl with a nose ring. The other barista... Oh. Cyrus stops in his tracks. He’s gorgeous. His shiny blond hair catches the unnatural fluorescent overhead light.

And yeah, it turns out he’s just as gorgeous up close when Cyrus finally manages to get in line. His eyes are bright green, and they seem to sparkle. He’s also wearing a rainbow flag pin on his apron. Cyrus’s eyes widen at that bit of information. The barista - TJ according to his name tag - must catch Cyrus’s line of sight because he smirks a bit. “Hey. What can I get you?”

Cyrus looks up at the menu. Every item has weird hipster names that make no sense. “Uh.”

The other boy smiles at him. His eyes are ridiculously green. “Let me guess, something sweet?” 

Cyrus blushes even darker than he already was. “Um. Sure.”

“How does a chocolatey chocolate chip frappe sound?” 

“Sounds… delicious,” he says. 

“Can I get a name?”

“Wait… what?” 

“Your name… for the cup… so I can write on it and know it’s yours.”

“Oh! Oh! It’s Cyrus.” He says, trying to calm down his heart that feels like it’s beating in his throat. 

“Cyrus… Great name.” 

“TJ, stop flirting and make the boy his drink.”

“Amber!”

“Please excuse my brother; he’s entirely too gay to function.”

TJ groans. “ _ Amber _ .”

“Um…” Cyrus tries not to stare at the boy, he really, really tries, but he can’t help it. Everything is amazing about him, including the way he smiled so warmly when he suggested the drink and started ringing him up. Gay? Did she say gay? Did this wonderful Amber person actually remove one of the greatest obstacles: trying to confirm if a cute boy is gay?

“Please,” TJ says. “Ignore her. I already deal with her at home and nobody else should be subjected to her. But anything other than the frappe?”

“No… no all good all good all good,” Cyrus says with a nervous giggle. “I mean… that’s it. Thanks…”

“Four eighteen please.” TJ smiles.

Cyrus pays and quickly goes to a table along the wall, where he can still watch what the baristas are doing. They’re both bickering, but quietly so that he can’t make out their words. Amber looks over at Cyrus then back at TJ, gesturing while T.J. moves around the bar, grabbing all the ingredients and then turning on the blender right when it looks like the two are saying something particularly heated.

Cyrus spaces out watching TJ and almost forgets that he’s waiting for his own drink. By the time he shakes himself out of it, TJ is walking over to his table with a cup full of something covered in entirely too much whipped cream.

Surprisingly, TJ seems a bit nervous. 

“Uh, hey. Here’s this.” He sets the drink down and hesitates. Cyrus is still trying to wrap his mind around whatever is going on when TJ suddenly sits down across from him. “Listen,” he said. “I really want to apologize for Amber if she made you uncomfortable earlier.”

“No, it’s fine,” he says. “My friends like teasing me like that too. Totally normal, right?”

“Right,” he says with a little laugh. “You go to Jefferson University, right?”

“Yeah… how did you know?”

He points at the book on the table. “My sister had Virelli last semester. She’s in fashion journalism.”

“Oh! Oh, that’s funny,” he says, blushing a little. Is TJ blushing? No… no way, right?

“Well… I gotta get back to work. I’ll see you around, right?” 

“Yeah… college student… need coffee…”

“Did you want coffee… because that doesn’t really have any…” TJ looks at him in a bit of a panic. “I can go make you something else with coffee so that you have coffee… and of course I wouldn’t take that from you…”

“Not right now, no,” Cyrus says, hoping he didn’t freak the cute boy out too much. “I didn’t want any coffee right now, but later I might… I mean… most of that menu looks like it’s written in Greek to me. It might be easier to read if it was actually in Greek.”

“Then I hope to see you later.” TJ smiles shyly and gets up. “I’ll give you a crash course on our weird menu items, their normal English names for them, and more chocolatey chocolate chip frappes.” He gives Cyrus one last smile before he turns away, going back to work.

Cyrus looks down at his cup. There’s a smiley face drawn on right next to his name.

* * *

Buffy and Andi are definitely Cyrus’s best friends. Actually, they’re his only friends in college, but he doesn’t feel like he’s lacking in the friendship department in the slightest. Being an out of state student is hard. Not that he had many friends back in the midwest either. He had really wanted a change of scenery after high school. Utah is certainly that and then some.

Buffy Driscoll is everything that Cyrus isn’t. She’s confident, athletic, and sometimes a little cocky. One thing he learned is that he can get her to do almost anything if he bets her that she can’t. He has had to use it, but only to get her to focus on their studying after she gets lost on a tangent. 

Andi Mack meanwhile is just the most creative person he’s ever met. When they first became friends, she made him a keychain for his dorm keys after he told her how much he hated the lanyards they came on, and that all the school keychains were tacky and ugly. She found out his favorite colors and that he loved dinosaurs and was able to weave a triceratops in blue and green. Even if it isn’t completely accurate, Cyrus loves it and he sometimes even feels afraid of using it so that he won’t ruin it, but she told him that she’d make him more if she had to.

Andi chews thoughtfully. “Can I be petty for a minute?”

Buffy discreetly rolls her eyes. Actually she’s pretty obvious, but it’s not like Andi is going to notice. “Please don’t try to tell us a story that starts out interesting but ends up just being about Jonah.”

“What? I wasn’t going to!” Buffy gives her a pointed look, and Andi deflates. “Never mind.”

Cyrus decides to interject. “Actually… I may have something interesting to share.” He knows that he has both girls’ attention before he looks up from his basket of baby taters.

“Oh?” Buffy looks intrigued. Cyrus doesn’t usually have great stories to tell, at least not ones that would impress his much more interesting friends.

“I went to that new cafe you mentioned, Andi. The Spoon?”

Andi and Buffy look at each other. “Okay. And?”

Cyrus shrugs one shoulder and stuffs a baby tater in his mouth. Maybe this one isn’t worth telling after all. “There was this guy there…”

Buffy shrieks and jumps up.

“Relax, I didn’t even say anything yet!” 

Andi still looks annoyed, but now she’s also smiling reluctantly.

Buffy sits back down. “Okay, Okay.” She glares at Cyrus. “But I know you. I can tell when you’re being deliberately nonchalant.”

“There’s this barista at the cafe…”

“ _ And _ ?”

“I don’t know. He’s cute. Really cute.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“He took my order, I guess.”

Andi gets serious. “Cyrus. Listen to me. I need you to have a messier love life than me so I can take a break from the ridicule.”

“Well, the gay thing does tend to make it pretty messy. But he’s gay too. I think.”

“ _ Cyrus _ !” 

“You guys don’t know the struggle! Being gay is hard.”

Andi hums. Buffy rolls her eyes.

Cyrus sighs. “Listen, it’s not a big deal. Except it kind of is. But it’s not!”

Buffy smirks. “Whatever you say, Cyrus. I totally won’t pry or meddle. Like, totally.”

“I know very well that’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told, Buffy Driscoll.”

* * *

“Ugh, remind me why I wanted to study political science?”

Cyrus looks up from the textbook that he hadn’t really been digesting. “Uh, you want to save the world?”

Buffy groans. Their political theory class has been kicking both of their asses this quarter. Cyrus can tell that he’s a bit more interested in the subject than Buffy is. They’ve been friends since freshman year, when they were paired up for a project on economic inequality. 

Now it’s sophomore year, and they’re in Cyrus’s dorm room. Buffy is sprawled out on the bed ignoring her open textbook. Cyrus is at his desk, pretending he isn’t just as bored as Buffy is. The two of them have been studying for their midterm for the past five hours.

Cyrus doesn’t want to admit it, but he might be a little bit distracted. He can’t stop thinking about what happened the day before. Not that it was a big deal or anything, but Cyrus doesn’t get much attention, no matter how casual it may be. TJ’s smiles and the way he came out from behind the bar to hand deliver the drink to Cyrus... He saw that TJ and Amber didn’t really do that all that often. Mostly they called out the name from the counter as loud as they could.

He wants an excuse to go back.

“You know what we need? A change of scenery.”

Buffy grins and slams her textbook shut enthusiastically. Cyrus winces, remembering the $200 price tag. “Does this mean that I finally get to meet your cute barista?”

Cyrus blushes. “Shut up, I mentioned him, like, once. It’s nothing”

Buffy laughs. “Whatever you say.”

“I mean it! It’s just a barista who may or may not have above average attractiveness. It’s fine!” Cyrus said.

“Alright, I could use a latte to help me focus, and I can give this guy the Driscoll seal of approval.”

“Please don’t.”

* * *

Buffy enters the cafe ahead of Cyrus. When they get inside she suddenly stops in her tracks, nearly causing Cyrus to crash into her. “Absolutely not. We are leaving right now.”

“What?”

“That’s my sworn enemy.”

Cyrus peers around Buffy and looks over at the counter, confused. The cafe is pretty empty and the only baristas he recognizes today are Amber and - Cyrus blushes - TJ. He’s leaning against the counter at the register while Amber makes a drink. When Cyrus can compose himself, he turns Buffy around to face him.

“Who, Amber? I know she can be a little sarcastic, but she seems nice enough.”

“No,  _ TJ fucking Kippen _ ,” Buffy sneers venomously.

“Uh.”

“Cyrus,  _ please _ tell me you’re not about to say what I think you’re going to say.”

Cyrus stares at the ground sheepishly. “Uh…”

“He’s absolutely evil! We’re leaving and you’re forgetting about him.” She grabs his arm and starts to drag him out of the cafe. Cyrus shakes her off of him.

Cyrus is shocked at Buffy’s reaction. “There is no way we’re talking about the same person.”

She rolls her eyes. “He’s the president of the men’s intramural basketball club. He  _ always  _ steals the court that the women’s club is scheduled for. Then he acts like a total jerk and says that he  _ deserves _ it more than we do.”

Suddenly, TJ looks up and sees Cyrus. He grins and then looks down as if he’s embarrassed, trying to hide his smile. Cyrus blushes, which seems to be an inevitable consequence of all things related to TJ at this point.

“Seriously Cyrus?!” She hisses at him and pulls him back to look him in the eyes. “Toxic TJ Kippen is not one to be messed with!”

“TJ the barista with the rainbow pin is nothing to worry about.” He pulls away from her and looks back at TJ again with a smile.

Buffy huffs and crosses her arms, turning away from the counter presumably so she doesn’t have to make eye contact with TJ. Cyrus is pretty sure that TJ doesn’t even notice that she’s there. Instead, his face lights up as soon as Cyrus reaches the register.

“Hey. Chocolate chocolate chip frappe?.”

“Yeah.” Cyrus smiles shyly.

“Coming right up.” TJ starts to punch the order into the register.

“Anything you’re willing to try today? Any caffeine in you?”

“I don’t think a coffee at four in the afternoon would do me any good. Just keep me up way too late and make me regret taking an eight a.m. class even more than I already do!”

T.J. laughs and writes the cup for the frappe, adding Cyrus’s name. “That it?”

Cyrus glances at Buffy, still glaring off into space. “Oh, uh, and…”

Buffy spins around.

“ _ TJ _ .” She spits venomously.

TJ’s eyes widen. “Oh...I didn’t know you were friends with-“

“Buffy,” she says. “Though I’m sure you thought my name is ‘get off the court!’”

“I’ve got a team behind me, Driscoll.”

“Oh, so you do know my name,” she says. “You know what, Cyrus, I’ll wait for you outside. I think I need some fresh air.” She walks out of the cafe and sits at the bench across the street. Cyrus looks back at her and then at T.J. 

“I’m sorry… Maybe you can give that cup to someone else instead?” He cautiously takes a few steps back and then turns to leave. He doesn’t see TJ’s face fall, and him crumple the cup and throw it in the trash.

* * *

Cyrus walks for ages, not really sure where he’s going. He keeps wandering the campus, not really looking at anyone and really hoping to be alone so he can read his book in peace. He ends up finding a little spot under a tree near a fountain, far away from most of the masses and slightly hidden behind the music building.

TJ somehow finds Cyrus half an hour later, holding his messenger bag nervously.

“Hey. Can I sit?”

Cyrus looks up, frowning a little. The memory of Buffy’s words still echoes in his end. He just shrugs.

TJ sighs and sits down on the bench next to him. “Listen, I wanted to… talk to you.”

“So talk.” Cyrus folds the corner of his page and closes the book.

TJ takes another deep breath. “I feel like I have to explain-”

“Your problem with Buffy is none of my business.” 

“I don’t have a  _ problem  _ with her. You obviously know Buffy better than I do, but on the court she can be... a lot.”

Cyrus turns away. “I feel like maybe it’s better if I don’t know.”

“I  _ want  _ you to know. Basketball is all I have. Right now. If I don’t practice with my team, our club could lose our registration.” He pauses, thinking. “I feel like there must have been some sort of misunderstanding. What did Buffy say to you?”

“She said you keep taking the court when the girls’ team is scheduled to have it.” 

TJ suddenly looks distraught. “Oh no.”

“What?”

“I have this sort of… math dyslexia. I must have gotten the times mixed up.”

Cyrus turned back. “You have dyscalculia?”

“You know about it?”

“I have, like, four parents,” he laughs. “A child of divorce and remarriage. Three of my parents are psychologists. My step-dad is a life coach. If it exists in the DSM-5, I know it from dinner conversations.”

“Oh,” he looks down at his shoes. They’re pretty scuffed up from all of his years owning them. “So you know what that can do with numbers and perception of time in general?”

“I know it pretty well. So… when Buffy signs up her team and your team is in there...?”

“I think that she checked out the court for the 21st, not the 12th.”

“Why don’t you tell her?”

“I never really liked telling people.” He sighs again and then looks back up at Cyrus. “Amber and I are from out of state, and where we’re from… different people don’t do too well. Amber and I were both firmly and unhappily barricading ourselves in the closet until we got here and when people at my school found out about my learning disability, it didn’t matter that I was the captain of the basketball team.”

“I’m sorry Teej. That really sucks,” Cyrus puts his arm on T.J.’s shoulder. “But if you want to make it up to Buffy, you need to tell her, and be honest with her. That way, instead of fighting on the court, maybe you two could text each other and coordinate a Google calendar or something. That way, instead of trying to read and remember times and dates, your phone will tell you when you’re supposed to go.”

“That’s… not a bad idea. You really know what you’re doing, Chocolatey Chocolate Chip Frappe.” T.J. smiles at him.

“Proof that maybe I can be trusted then. I’ve been told I’m a very good judge of character.”

TJ smiles. “Will you come to my next game, then?”

“Of course.”

“Is it… is it a date?”

“Wait… wait… were you…” Cyrus’s eyes widen.

“Oh… oh, sorry… never mind… I just thought you were… I’m gonna go… I’m sorry…”

“No! No! No no no no no no!” Cyrus grabs his arm and pulls him back down. “I mean… wait… Gay! Me! Gay!”

T.J. looks at him and laughs a little. “Well...me gay too…” 

“I know… I mean… that was established…” Cyrus laughs nervously. “I just didn’t think you liked me.”

“I do… which is why I charged you for a small cup of milk the last few times you were in the coffee shop.”

“That’s why I paid only a dollar fifty! Especially when the first time was like four something! I thought that was weird.”

“Shh! Don’t tell anyone!” TJ laughs.

“Well, I’ll go on the date with you. Just no more illegally undercharging me. I’m a law abiding citizen.”

“I promise. So… date?”

“Would you mind if we had a first date a little sooner?” Cyrus asks. “How about Friday night at the Italian place down the street.”

“Sure thing. Basketball can be our second date.”

Cyrus smiles and watches him get up and then stops him again when a thought comes to him. He did promise Andi to make her love life less messy by comparison, maybe he needs to make her love life less messy overall. “Your sister, Amber? Is she single?”


End file.
